Every once in a while, Hulk could figure out a real name. In 1980, there was a Spider-man/Hulk/Lake Placid Winter Olympics tie-in, with Mole Manand his 'flame creature' henchmen. Hulk starts off calling them 'Fire-Men', but once he hears one of them using the correct 'Lava-Men', he verbalizes it for himself 'Huh? Fire-Men are called...Lava-Men'?...and it stuck for the rest of the story.

And yeah, Wein got a little cute with Hulk and 'Pointy-Ears', before Batman corrected him, and Hulk eventually retained it.

But 'Defenders Hulk' was never going to remember 'Bird-Nose', 'Magician', 'Fish Man', 'Sword-Girl' or 'Cat-Girl' by their 'real names'!

But, it was just me, I guess...the 'little kid' nicknames Hulk gave everybody just stuck out a like a sore (green) thumb, compared to Ben Grimm's shorthand for everybody.

When DC decided to kill Barry Allen, Dick Giordano told me it was because "there were no more stories to tell with him."

Bah! I said. But for the fact that I only have about four running poses, I could have done another hundred issues with Barry.

But, alas, DC was then in their mindset that characters that were fuct-up were fuct-up forever. (Unless Alan Moore wanted to do something with them.)

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For whatever reason, DC seemed to think 'Only Cary Bates could write the Flash'. The guy only missed four issues in about 11 years before it was cancelled. One of those, in 1980 featured a team-up with Firestorm, which was handled by Gerry Conway, but a second story in that issue was by Martin Pasko. Later, in '81-'82, there were two 'guest writer', presumably inventory, issues about 6 months apart...so DC at least experimented with other 'creative voices'. Both of those stories still read pretty much as if Bates wrote them, anyway.

IMO, Barry did become something of an 'old hat' character under Bates...but the remedy for that is bringing in a new writer, not some lame excuse like Giordano gave(Eveyone at DC was drinking the 'Change is good' Kool-Aid by 1985, obviously).

Besides, all they did for a year or so after Wally took over was have him fight Barry's villains about every other issue.

Anyway, the nonsense from the movie people about the Hulk not being able to carry a movie series of his own is just that: nonsense.

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Who has said this, Greg? (Genuine question). As I understood it, Disney are precluded from doing Hulk solo movies (or even putting the Hulk's name in a movie title) because the distribution rights remain with Universal, and the two studios don't appear to get along too well.

Who has said this, Greg? (Genuine question). As I understood it, Disney are precluded from doing Hulk solo movies (or even putting the Hulk's name in a movie title) because the distribution rights remain with Universal, and the two studios don't appear to get along too well.+++++++++++++++

I can't give an exact citation or quote, but I remember reading that the studio felt, after two underperforming solo Hulk films, that the character couldn't support his own series, and worked better as a co-star. Maybe I'm misremembering. Take it with a grain of salt.

I miss dumb, innocent Hulk. Sometimes a portrayal of a character becomes THE definitive version. Just like the Neal Adams-bearded and Robin Hood-hatted Green Arrow/Ollie over at DC--who I haven't seen in decades now. They have a character called "Green Arrow" but it's not really Green Arrow. And I haven't seen the real Hulk (except in the movies, actually) for decades either.

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